August Wilson’s 10-play cycle on the black experience in America throughout the 20th century is a towering achievement, that much is indisputable.

That his stories exist at all is as important as the stories themselves.

The oft-called “Black Shakespeare” chronicled generation after generation of slave descendants, giving uncommon theatrical voice to garbagemen, gypsy cab drivers, ex-cons and other downtrodden figures still struggling to find reconciliation, a buck, peace of mind or just a fair shake in the Hill District of Pittsburgh.

By writing his cycle, Wilson took the primarily oral history of the black experience and put it into a written framework. What would we be missing had he never bothered?

“The history of a culture,” said Denver’s Israel Hicks, the first man in the world to have directed Wilson’s entire cycle for one theater company.

Critics and audiences have had their say, play by play, about Wilson’s work. But what about the totality of the project? What can be said now that all 10 plays have made it to the stage? Will they stand as a singular achievement?

There’s no one answer. Collectively, they are important, from both an artistic and cultural perspective. Individually, there were hits and misses, with deserved Pulitzers for “Fences” and “The Piano Lesson,” while others lapse into self-indulgence.

It’s the totality of his treatise that reveals the ongoing economic and human struggle many blacks have faced since slaves were freed, as Wilson believed, “only as a matter of political expediency.”

The cycle begins in 1904 with “Gem of the Ocean,” which focuses on former slaves who have been granted freedom but no rights to do anything with it. It ends in the 1990s, with an Ivy League lawyer running to become Pittsburgh’s first black mayor.

“August really anticipated some things,” said Hicks.

When Wilson died in 2005, he could not have known that “Radio Golf,” now completing the cycle for the Denver Center Theatre Company, brings with it new symbolism and hope in the Obama era.

But Hicks thinks Obama faces the same question as fictional Harmond Wilks: “Can you get done what you say you are going to get done without having to become someone else?”

Like Wilson, Hicks grew up in the turbulent ’60s. “The big question for us then was, ‘Where do we come from, who am I, and where is my history?’ ” Hicks said.

“And I think out of that, August gave birth to, decade by decade, some answers.”

But the cycle is more than a history of black America, actor Phylicia Rashad said. It’s the larger, often shameful history of America itself.

“There is subtle information in every one of these plays that bears study,” said Rashad, who was Tony-nominated for playing Aunt Ester in “Gem of the Ocean” in 2005.

“In 1904, America was involved in a westward expansion and colonization in the Philippines. Which is to say that America was fully engaged in the practices that have led us to where we are today. And it’s in these plays.”

Jobs program for actors

The cycle has brought empowerment and recognition to many black people. It’s also brought massive employment to black actors. Here was a writer consumed with the elusiveness of economic power for black people, in effect creating his own jobs program.

The cycle is filled with ordinary men facing Grecian burdens, surrounded by mysticism and recurring symbolism. One such man is Hedley, the ex-con who’s trying to make a garden grow in the inner city. One such symbol is the rooster, one of which he ritualistically slaughters.

In “Gem of the Ocean,” a black man accused of stealing a bag of nails jumps into a river to his death. Not as a confession; it’s the act of an innocent man who would rather die in truth than live in a lie.

To Hicks, the single most heartbreaking moment of the series comes in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” which takes place in a 1920s recording studio. For a long time, we see a group of black musicians full of bravado — until they are called upstairs and told to remove their hats for white men.

“In that moment, they transform from men into boys,” said Hicks. “That says as much about the destructiveness of what happened to us as a culture as anything.”

But not every play is created equally. Wilson’s writing is hailed for its masterful, rhythmic dialogue; its powerful forays into mysticism. But he was a windy writer, and he got windier after he parted ways with his dramaturg and mentor, Lloyd Richards, with three plays yet to be written.

“August always thought of himself as a poet, but I promise you, Lloyd made him a great writer,” Hicks said. “There’s a real line of demarcation when they split. There is a real difference in the writing. It’s obvious in the repetitiveness and in the increased lengths of the monologues.”

Not representative

Wilson also was criticized by some blacks for emphasizing the poorest among them, fearing white audiences might not understand that his characters are not representative of all black Americans.

“But quite frankly, that’s where most stories come from,” Hicks said. “The thing is, many of the (black) people who are no longer impoverished no longer want to deal with those stories. They no longer talk about them at cocktail parties. God forbid one should say, ‘Yeah, I grew up in the projects.’

“What August did was exactly what Shakespeare did. You don’t have to be royalty in order to have dignity and a real human experience that is also a universal experience.”

To DCTC actor Harvy Blanks, the cycle can be seen as a metaphor for what blacks in this country have been struggling to do since slavery, “and that’s trying to find family.”

His most meaningful role was playing Loomis, a former slave traveling the countryside in 1910 looking for his wife.

“To me, it’s a microcosm for what slavery did to the black family because of the separation that took place,” he said. “They could take your mother or father or your kids. They could split you up at any time.”

Hicks believes the essence of every Wilson play “is about finding out who we are as a people, where we came from. Will we get bogged down by the history, or do we move forward? What’s the next step?

“As a people, we can achieve, that’s clear. If we are afforded the opportunity, we can get it done. But what is it we are going to do in getting it done if the soul and the heart of the community is gone?”

Wilson’s palette: A look at three key characters

Aunt Ester

Aunt Ester, whom we meet in “Gem of the Ocean,” is the epicenter of Wilson’s world. It’s 1904, and Ester is “a washer of souls,” a 285-year-old woman who offers refuge to old underground warriors and young men in turmoil. She represents the entire black experience since the first slave arrived in Virginia chained to a ship’s hull.

Ester was born in 1619, the first year Africans were brought to America as slaves. Wilson kept her alive throughout his series as a corporeal connection to the spiritual roots of all African-American people.

When Wilson ultimately decided to kill off his matriarch in “King Hedley II,” he cried for a week. But by the 1980s, when blacks were killing blacks for drug money and sneakers, the playwright concluded this bond was forever severed. So in “King Hedley II,” Ester’s death is noted — at 367 years old. In the final chapter, her home is slated for demolition.

Pictured: Phylicia Rashad as Aunt Ester in “Gem of the Ocean.” Photo by T. Charles Erickson

Hambone

Nearly every play has a Hambone, or someone like him. He’s a black man with an impaired ability to communicate. He’s symbolic of all black men to whom injustice has been done and just can’t get past it (which is his real disability).

In “Two Trains Running,” Hambone has been cheated out of a ham promised to him by a white butcher for painting his fence. A decade later, his vocabulary has been reduced to a single sentence he constantly repeats — “I want my ham!”

“August makes a real point of saying that at some point, every person confronts their history,” director Israel Hicks said. “You either accept it, understand it and move forward, or you get bogged down by it, and you become a Hambone. It becomes a choice, and that’s what happened to so many people.”

Why was Wilson so intent on representing this kind of black man in every play?

“Walking around New York City, I see a number of black men wandering the streets talking to themselves, and I often wonder, what brought that individual to that point? What was it in their lives that did that?

“For Hambone, there’s a point at which the human spirit can’t take anymore. And if the spirit dies, the body follows. That’s Hambone to me.”

According to legend, the Gem of the Ocean is the name of a ship that capsized in the Atlantic and rests below in a city built entirely from the bones of all Africans who did not survive passage to America.

In “Gem of the Ocean,” Aunt Ester dispatches Citizen Barlow on an epic, mystical journey to the mythic City of Bones that not only will connect him to his heritage but anoint him as the next generation of the underground resistance. There, Barlow hears whispers of his ancestors that may as well be coming from Wilson himself: “Remember me.”

This week’s best bet

Take Sigmund Freud and God as a dandy in a tuxedo, put them in a French play, and you have the makings for the unlikeliest hit of the theater season. Eric Emmanuel-Schmitt’s “The Visitor” peeks in on Freud (Rick Bernstein) as he ponders signing a Gestapo-penned paper that would allow him and his daughter, Anna, to flee the Nazis. The visitor of the title (Eric Mather) is a patient who claims to be God. This sets off the philosophical and spiritual debate of a lifetime – at least that’s how Kurt Brighton called it in his review. 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 6 p.m. Sundays (except 2 p.m. closing day, April 5), at Miners Alley Playhouse, 1224 Washington Ave. in Golden. $20 (303-935-3044 or minersalley.com). John Moore

Most recent openings

“Colorado Homegrown Tales”An ongoing series of themed readings of short stories by Colorado authors. “A Little Frayed at the Edge” looks at characters navigating the edge between despair and determination. Authors include Lynn Hamilton, Laura Hendrie and Jenny Meyer. Sunday and April 5 only. Byers-Evans House, 1310 Bannock St., 720-233-0811 or homegrowntales.com

“Monopoly”Acclaimed storyteller Mike Daisey performs his monologue about the secret history of inventor Nikola Tesla, a sometime resident of Colorado Springs who developed the form of electricity we use today, and his war with Thomas Edison. Interwoven is the Microsoft antitrust case, Wal-Mart and the secret history of the board game, all speaking to the consequences of real monopolies in the corporate age. Through Sunday. TheatreWorks’ 3955 Cragwood Drive, Colorado Springs, 719-255-3232 or uccstheatreworks.com

“Out of Order”Ray Cooney’s British farce about a government official whose tryst with one of the opposition’s typists goes disastrously wrong — beginning with the dead body trapped in his hotel window. Through April 26. Union Colony Dinner Theatre, 802 Ninth Ave., Greeley, 970-352-2900 or ucdinnertheatre.com

“Radio Golf”The final chapter in August Wilson’s 10-play, decade-by-decade exploration of the black experience in America. Set in 1997, redevelopment threatens the preservation of a landmark house with important spiritual meaning to the neighborhood. As a black mayoral candidate steps into political prominence, his past is just a few steps behind — and gaining fast. Through April 25. Denver Center Theatre Company, Space Theatre, Denver Performing Arts Complex, 14th and Curtis streets, 303-893-4100 or denvercenter.org

And introducing … The Running Lines blog

You can now find John Moore’s roundup of daily theater news and dialogue, including this week’s tale of running into a rather unsavory theater patron, at blogs.denverpost.com/runninglines

Re-cap: This week’s theater coverage in The Denver Post

The August Wilson Cycle: August Wilson’s 10-play cycle on the black experience in America throughout the 20th century is a towering achievement, that much is indisputable. But what about the totality of the project? Will it stand as a singular achievement? click here

Saving theater in Trinidad: When 9-year-old Zoë Revas and the people of Trinidad went out and raised $90,000, it not only saved the upcoming season, it may offer a blueprint for the way communities can come together to help solve economic problems in hard times click here

Denver Center season: The theater company’s 2009-10 season reflects a $1 million budget cut that will manifest itself in fewer jobs, fewer plays and a shorter season. click here

See a show at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House in 2015? Purchase a painting at a local art fair? How about buy a book from a Colorado author or visit a local museum? If you answered yes to any of these questions you contributed to the $13.7 billion arts and culture brought to the state’s economy that year.